


"When Am I Getting Out of Here?"

by DemonnPrincess



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Endurance - Freeform, Having Faith, Imprisonment, M/M, Military, Molestation, Psychological Torture, Rape/Non-con Elements, Suffering, Trust
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-16
Updated: 2017-07-16
Packaged: 2018-12-02 21:57:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11518305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DemonnPrincess/pseuds/DemonnPrincess
Summary: Some events that took place one night while Eren was being held in the custody of the military police.





	"When Am I Getting Out of Here?"

“Oh my goodness!”

Levi stopped pulling the dungeon door open and paused for a second, hearing more than a few military police laughing at what one of them had just yawned out despite the fact that there should only be two of them in there at a time.

“This kid is freaking unbelievable!” another one yelled out.

Levi pulled the door all the way open and stepped in, pointing authoritatively at the two guards who were leaning against the wall facing the cell, instead of standing guard with their backs to it like they were supposed to, as they chatted away with three more military police who were casually strolling out of the bar doors. “What are you doing opening those doors?”

“Uh,” one of the guards who’d just walked out of the cell tucking his shirt in nodded to Levi. “Sir.”

“No, I asked you a question.”

“Oh, he isn’t gonna hurt us.” Another one of the guards who was coming out of the cell started talking instead. “We were just teasing him a bit. We’ve been watching him for a while. If he _could_ break out of here he probably would have by now.” He turned and shut the cell door and latched it. “We’re aware that he’s some dangerous monster but we’re safe in here, don’t worry.”

Levi gave up on them mentally and walked over to the chair seated across from the cell and sat down like he’d planned to do from the start. “I’ll go ahead and keep an eye on him so you guys can rest.”

“Yes, sir.” They all answered.

One of the guards who was previously leaning against the wall gestured for Levi’s attention. “There should be a couple other guards coming shortly to take our place. Should we go ahead and let them know?”

Levi waved his hand in the air, telling the guard that it was okay. “That’s fine. I’m just checking up on him until then and giving you guys an early break.”

“Understood.” The guard answered, nodding. “Thank you.”

Levi crossed his legs and tilted his head to the side, watching them as they all turned and left out into the hall before closing the dungeon doors behind them. He scrolled his eyes over to the cell, seeing the huge lump in the bedding where the boy was laying on his side, the covers pulled up so high that he couldn’t see his face. He glanced at two of the shackles attached to the ceiling and traced them all the way to the blanket to make sure they were still secured to him. “It’s the middle of the night. Are you still asleep or did they wake you up?”

Eren stirred a bit in bed as his response rather than speaking.

“Regardless of if you’re upset from being picked at or because you’re in this cell, you still have to address your superiors with respect. They’ll be paying even more attention to that with you especially.”

“…..yes, sir.”

Levi nodded. “Did you eat?”

“Yes sir, I did.”

Levi nodded again. “Okay.” He exhaled heavily at how stuffy and hot it was in the dungeon. He frowned slightly at how the boy was comfortably laying under all that bedding despite how hot he must be. “You’re making me hot boy.” he sighed, grabbing the collar to his shirt and fanning it to cool himself off.

“…..so, you too?”

“Me too?” Levi let his shirt go and stood up, walking over to the bars. “Me, _what_?”

Eren stared straight ahead at one of the stone walls in his cell. “Are you gonna come in here just to mess with me too?” He heard the bars to his cell opening, and he took a deep breath and exhaled, then pulled the covers over his head.

“That’d be a complete waste of energy just to make someone feel bad about themselves.”

Eren heard Levi walking up to his bed. He quietly grabbed the slacked chain to his shackles in both hands and held it taught, but immediately rethought it and let the chain go.

Levi pulled the covers off of Eren’s head and noticed right away that he was giving him a very menacing frown. “Those guards just like to push you around because they get bored down here and because their job caused them to develop a god complex over time. Try not to let it upset you. They’re just a bunch of grown men acting like bullies.”

“That’s…” Eren sighed, seeing Levi extend a cup of water towards him. He nodded and sat up. “Thank you.” He took the cup and downed the water quickly.

“M-hm.” Levi waited until Eren was finished, then took the cup and sat it back down on the desk.

Eren leaned his back against the headboard. “……when am I getting out of here?”

‘We’re working on it.” Levi brought the chair that was outside of the cell in sat it down against the far-right wall on the side of the bed. “I know it’s been a while, but just try to hang on.”

“I know, it’s just-”

“Just be glad you’re alive at the moment. You’re suffering right now, but you have to be alive to feel that. Take it as a blessing in disguise.”

Eren nodded once quietly. “I know. I’m trying. It’s just…” He grabbed the edge of the covers and squeezed them tightly with his fists.

Levi glanced at his hands, then at his face and noticed that he was staring off into nothing. “What kinds of things do you think about to help keep you going while you’re in here? Talk about _those_ things.”

“…I wonder what all of my friends are doing while I’m in here. If they’re having fun and are still able to function or if they’ve been worried sick about what’s gonna happen to me.”

“You’d feel pretty bad if you found out that they worried themselves sick all this time, correct?”

Eren nodded, then glanced at him from the corner of his eyes, already knowing where he was going with the conversation.

“Try to reverse that. That way if and when you _do_ get out and you tell them all that you were okay in here the entire time it won’t just be a lie. They probably won’t ever tell you, but they’ll be able to tell if you’re being sincere or not.”

Eren nodded again. “I get it. I’m really trying, honestly.”

“And your mother as well. I’m sure she taught you how to persevere.”

“Y…yeah.” Eren looked off to the side. “I dream about her a lot in here. I started looking forward to falling asleep because they’re pleasant dreams instead of the bad ones of her being eaten. I can smell her in my dreams, and I can taste her food and feel her skin when I touch her face. And she sounds exactly the same and everything. It’s almost like there’s an alternate universe that I go to when I’m sleep where she’s actually still alive and doing well. Like I leave this cell when I sleep…but it’s gotten so hard to sleep, all thanks to those si-”

“Talk about _her_.”

Eren grinned weakly. “I actually don’t really like talking about her. It makes me angry.” He stayed quiet for a long while, then started speaking again. “She is… _was_ …a good mom. Her and Dad treated Mikasa like she was their own. We bickered a lot, and I got annoyed when she’d mention how good Mikasa was at doing her chores and following the rules. But I know she didn’t do it maliciously or anything.”

Levi stayed quiet and continued listening.

“One time, I’d stormed out of the house after yelling at Mom, and some random old guy who used to piss me off said that one day she’d be gone and I’d wish she was here to annoy me…kinda wish he wasn’t so right. If I was granted just three more minutes with her right now, but it had to be three minutes of her scolding me, I’d take it because at least I’d get to see her alive one more time…” Eren stared up at the ceiling to hide the fact that he was tearing up. “She didn’t deserve to die the way she did. She was a good person with no amount of bad in her. That’s why I get so angry when I think about…you have any idea what a person being snapped in half looks like?”

“Yes.”

Eren whipped his head around and looked at Levi with a shocked expression, then turned back around. “Oh.”

“That day when they were about to kill you and your two friends with the cannon fire, you shielded them using your body. It was your titan body, but you still had no idea how to control it so you had no idea of knowing initially if you could be severely injured or die from being hit.”

“I wasn’t thinking about that though.” Eren held his wrists up and stared at the shackles. “I just knew that they were about to be killed, and I just needed to protect them. I dunno what happened with the giant body and everything, but I just knew that I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if something happened to them.”

Levi nodded. “And just say, for instance, something _did_ end up happening to you and you died. Would you want them to spend the majority of their youth upset about it?”

“No.” Eren put his arms back down to his sides. “I’d want them to try to live the best life that they could instead of worrying about me.” He looked over at Levi again and noticed that he was staring him directly in the eyes on purpose. “Oh I see what you’re getting at…this is different.”

“How?”

“That was my mother.” Eren turned away and looked up at the ceiling again. “If I knew I could do this titan thing back then I could have saved her.”

“Don’t you think she’d be hurt if she could see you now?”

“I know, I know. I get what you’re saying. I just have to do this for _me_.”

“It’s affecting more than just _you_ though. Your friends worry about you and constantly break their backs trying to keep you calm, and you snap at random people even when they aren’t doing anything. Your mother surely wouldn’t want you doing all that in her honor-”

“I KNOW!” Eren shouted, yanking one of his arms which caused a shock wave to shoot up his chain and rattle all the other contraptions on the ceiling, sending a loud echo throughout the entire dungeon that reverberated several times.

Levi could see Eren bear his teeth and start to shake as he started trying to force back his upsettedness. “Alright, I understand. I don’t want you to think I’m trying to force a way of thinking on you. That fire you get in your eyes when you’re angry keeps you going for weeks at a time. Just trying to bring that out and help get your mind off those bullies.”

“Yeah…I get it. Sorry, I didn’t mean to snap.” Eren stared ahead past the bars. “Are you gonna stay here the whole night?”

“I’m just taking over for the other guys until the next shift arrives. I have some errands to run in the morning.”

“….” Eren slumped his body, then quietly lied back down and pulled the covers up to his neck. “In the cell?”

“I’m fine. If you end up transforming I’ll just kill you.”

Eren swallowed hard. “Oh great, that’s reassuring.” he mumbled sarcastically.

“Try and get some sleep until then. If not, you’ll get in trouble for dozing off during the daytime again.”

“Understood.” Eren turned over and pulled the covers tightly around him.

Levi immediately noticed something fall out from under the bottom of Eren’s bed and turned to look at it, realizing that it was an empty pant leg dangling from beneath the covers. “Eren, what-”

“When am I getting out of here…”

Levi went over to the bed and tugged at the pant leg. An entire pair of pants dropped out of the bed and onto the floor.

“I get all of the stuff you were saying. I really do. But I feel like I’m losing it in here.”

Levi grabbed the pants and held them up in the air. The button was pulled out of the place it was supposed to be sewn to and was missing, and the zipper handle was still in the up position despite all the zipper teeth being apart as if they were manually pulled open. He turned and looked down at Eren and noticed that Eren had a humiliated and ashamed look on his face as he stared at the pants in Levi’s hands.

Eren hurried and turned away to try and hide the fact that he had noticed. He shifted his arms, making the chains clink a little.

“Eren, what exactly were they doing to you before I walked in?”

“Just leave it alone. I don’t wanna talk about it, I just wanna go to sleep.”

Levi grabbed the blanket at the foot of the bed and pulled it up, exposing Eren’s bare legs up to his knees as well as several dried stain spots dotting the entire sheet he was laying on. He glanced down at the pants he was holding again, and thought back to when he saw that one soldier coming out of the cell while tucking his shirt in. “Oh my God.” He sighed, dropping his arms to his sides and staring off towards the direction of the dungeon door. “Those sick sons of bitches.”

Eren pulled the blanket back over his legs with his feet and wrapped the covers around him tighter. “…I know already.”

Levi looked back down at Eren, only being able to see the back of his head.

“I get it… _‘Why didn’t you fight back, Eren?’, ‘We all saw you carry a boulder and beat up titans that day but you’re not strong enough to fight off a few human soldiers?’, ‘If you ‘really’ didn’t want it you’d try to do something about it.’ ‘You can’t can you, because the courts will have you killed immediately if you so much as put a scratch on one of us’_ …”

Levi folded Eren’s pants up neatly and sat them on the desk next to the cup.

“I hear it every night when they come in here. I really don’t need to hear it from you too.”

“I’m reporting them.” Levi turned to leave, but Eren grabbed onto his pants straps to keep him from going anywhere.

“….and I _really_ don’t need to hear it from the rest of the God damn citizens…”

Levi tried walking forward, but Eren held on, and he only succeeded in dragging the boy a few inches off the bed. “You may be at an unfair disadvantage and may not be able to do anything about this, but _I_ can, and that kind of behavior is disgusting and unacceptable. I will not stand idly by and allow something like this to continue happening to my subordinate.” He felt Eren tighten his grip on his straps and tug a little harder, and he could feel his hand trembling and his breath shaking as he moved air in and out through his teeth. “I know it’s scary to tell because the social backfire can be severe. Trust me, I know.”

“……..when am I getting out of here?”

Levi pried Eren’s hands off his straps, then pulled the covers back and climbed into the bed with him, leaning his back against the headboard. “Get some sleep. You’re safe.”

Eren untensed his muscles and scooted a little closer to Levi, grabbing ahold of his pants straps again from underneath the covers and then closing his eyes, ducking his face underneath the blanket to hide it.

“And it’s nothing to be ashamed of. Some people don’t understand certain situations, and they talk without knowing a thing about how it feels. And they always will. That’s life. But this isn’t your fault, regardless of what anyone might say.”

“…okay.” Eren nodded, his head still covered.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Eren shook his head initially, then stopped and put his arm under his head to feel the coldness of the shackles. He scooted down a little so that his entire head was hidden by the blanket. “When they do it, it hurts. A lot…a _whole_ lot.”

Levi watched the body lump in the blanket since he wasn’t able to see Eren at all. He gave a shaky, commiserated sigh, placing a hand on the boy’s shoulder through the covers and rubbing his thumb over it to reassure him.

The dungeon doors opened up just then, and Eren popped his eyes back open and stared into the darkness under the blanket, accidentally pulling at Levi’s pants straps even harder.

Two military police men stepped in and walked up to the cell, then stopped when they noticed Levi in the bed.

“Um,” one of the police officers cleared his throat, putting a hand on the other’s shoulder to get his attention. “It’s our shift now. We’re supposed to be taking over for the other guards that are supposed to be here.”

Eren poked his head out and looked over at the two guards, then turned away immediately and looked up at Levi who was saying nothing and giving the guards a _very_ threatening stare.

“Them too?” Levi asked quietly.

Eren paused for a second, then he saw Levi glance down at him, and he nodded discretely.

Levi put a hand on Eren’s head and scrolled his eyes back over to the guards, continuing to stare them down.

The guard who initially spoke took a few steps back. “We uh…we’re supposed to…” the guard’s voice trailed off and he turned and left without saying anything else, followed by the second guard a moment later.

Levi crossed one of his legs over the other underneath the covers. “I know you’re afraid, but I’m reporting them first thing in the morning even if you latch onto me again and I have to drag you, these shackles and the entire cell they’re attached to with me. If I have to postpone my errands then I guess that’s something I’ll have to do. And if the citizens talk or some of the members in our military decide to be ignorant about the situation, then you’ll find a way to survive it like you’ve done everything else so far. But you won’t be alone.”

Eren inhaled through his nose, pulling the covers back up to his forehead. “……okay.” he answered with a cracked voice.

“Just try to get some sleep.” Levi repeated from earlier, keeping his hand on Eren’s head.


End file.
